Diagnosis of ailments and treatment of disease often requires an analysis of biological signs obtained from a patient in the course of normal activity over a period of time. Personal health monitors are commonly employed to gather data related to a patients biometric data.
In general, a personal health monitor is a device used to measure and record one or more clinical parameters of a patient for later transmission to the patient's physician or other health care provider. The personal health monitor may be used in a hospital or clinical setting as an adjunct to existing care. Additionally, the personal health monitor may also be used by the patient outside care facilities (e.g., at a patient's home). When used by a patient at home, the patient operates the personal health monitor to record certain bodily clinical parameters. The personal health monitor can be used by the patient who has a condition requiring monitoring of one or more clinical parameters, but who otherwise may not require the level of care such as provided by a hospital. Accordingly, the personal health monitor provides potential savings in medical costs involved with a hospital stay.
For example, continuously monitoring cardiac patients immediately following coronary attacks is important. Such is normally accomplished effectively in the coronary care unit of most hospitals where the patients are continuously monitored following heart attacks to detect arrhythmias of the heart, for example monitoring and warning for ventricular arrhythmias, which may lead to ventricular fibrillation and death. Through prompt recognition and treatment of such warnings related to ventricular arrhythmias in coronary care units, the mortality rate of acute myocardial infarctions has been reduced considerably. In addition, many post myocardial infarction cardiac patients continue to have frequent ventricular extra systoles after discharge from the hospital. Accordingly, it is desired to continuously monitor the patient over a certain period of time and under varying conditions of stress, to determine the effectiveness treatment which has been introduced, such as the proper dosage of medication.
Constant monitoring of such patients after release from the hospital may be difficult because of the logistics involved, and particularly since they can no longer be monitored closely as a group by direct wiring or close telemetry, as commonly implemented in hospital settings. As a result, various systems have been developed to attempt to monitor the ECG signals of out-patients to thereby provide a diagnostic tool for additional treatment or variation of treatment for the patients as may be required. Accordingly, there has been a persistent need to develop health monitoring systems and methods that can effectively alert medical personnel when a patient needs medical assistance.
Nevertheless, such mobile units are typically spacious and difficult to set up and maintain. Moreover, in general these units are not suitable for readily monitoring a plurality of biological signs and biometric conditions. In addition, such systems lack flexibility during usage as they typically have fixed sensor types and configurations.
At the same time, compatibility of such systems with various communication requirements and protocols can create further problems and increase costs. This can further hinder a quick response of the medical staff when health issues arise for an ambulatory patient who employs such monitors. Also, with the current limits in resolution on existing biometric data acquisition modules, the analysis of low magnitude (and sometimes long duration) biometric parameters (e.g., EKG activity) is typically hindered and/or not possible. Such problem is further compounded due to gain amplifiers lack of operation flexibility, wherein the gain amplifiers (e.g., associated with sensors) are commonly set for high exertion activity levels.